Yes, leaders need leadership training.

Leadership training can be a tricky subject. Leaders are too busy for new additions to their schedules. They’re the ones who assign training (not take it themselves). They’re leaders for a reason (i.e. they don’t need training). Leaders are confident in their abilities (again, perhaps assuming they don’t need to learn new skills).

But wait. No. The above assumptions are all wrong.

Did you ever watch that children’s cartoon, Recess? It was about a group of friends in an American elementary school getting up to hi-jinks. The Principal of the school was called Peter Prickly.

I’m getting to the point, I promise.

The in-joke there – for those of us learnēd enough to glean such things from Saturday morning kids’ TV – is that he was Principal Peter. Or Peter, Principal. And the “Peter principle” is a leadership concept (named after the guy who came up with it: Laurence J. Peter), which says people usually get promoted in a hierarchy because they’re good at their jobs, up until the point they start being bad.

And (arguably) Peter isn’t that great of a Principal!

Tadaa! What a joke that is.

Shockingly, the Peter principle doesn’t just happen in cartoons. Often, when someone does well in their job, they’re promoted. But being good at the job you were doing doesn’t necessarily mean you’ll have the skills to do the job you’ve been promoted to. This is especially true when someone gets moved into a management or leadership role.

Being the best horse won’t make you the best jockey.

While there’s an argument that some people are born leaders, realistically, most of us will need help before picking up that kind of role. But a lot don’t get help.

Maybe it’s that people feel they’re too busy leading to be learning about leading. Maybe they feel they’ll pick it up on the job. Maybe they just feel they don’t need learning, like that’d be admitting failure or weakness. But are these excuses really worth not having the skills you need to be able to do your job as effectively as possible?

So, you’ve got to want to learn leadership skills. But you’ve also got to find the time.

What solutions are there that marry those two conditions? Well, here’s at least one solution.

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Author Stick Man

Stick Man is the saviour of the Learning Technologies industry. He’s not happy unless he is saving the world from boring learning. He’s been saving the world from boring learning since 2014, and intends to continue to do this well into old age (Stick Men live to around 3000 years old apparently). He loves it. Other things that excite him are cat videos and a nice flan.

Say Goodbye to Boring Learning

With an ever-expanding, accredited content library and brand new courses added for free regularly, Litmos Heroes provide (probably) the best off-the-shelf content library in the universe! Modules cover compliance, leadership training, health and safety, safe work practices and so much more. They also include reams of resources such as workbooks, video clips, infographics, and posters to save time and help you deliver a truly blended experience.